This thesis examines the ideas which underpinned early nineteenth century Toryism and their development in the late eighteenth century. It argues that a distinct, coherent, refined Tory identity emerged from the Tory splits between 1827 and 1830. This was preceded by a process of renegotiation and consolidation in Tory ideology and identity from 1760 onwards. The period between the accession of George III, in 1760, and the passage of the First Reform Act, in 1832, witnessed consistent and sustained crises regarding the constitution established in Church and state. The outbreak of revolutions in America and France reinvigorated debates regarding the nature and location of political sovereignty as well as the relationship between the crown and parliament. Lengthy wars against each nation were followed by severe economic depressions, the apparent proliferation of domestic political radicalism, and intermittent, but determined, demands for parliamentary reform. In addition, there were persistent attempts to alter the religious basis of the constitution to accommodate both Protestant pluralism and, from 1801, predominantly Catholic Ireland. This thesis contends that the debates surrounding these issues contributed to the rehabilitation and renegotiation of late-seventeenth-century and early-eighteenth-century Tory ideas. It also contends that, in moments of crisis and reaction, old Toryism converged with the conservative elements of an increasingly fractured Whig tradition in defence of the constitutional status quo. This convergence, apparent in the opening decades of George III’s reign, was consolidated in the context of the French Revolution. Consequently, after 1812, a broad, but loose, ideological consensus emerged, labelled as Tory, underpinned by anti-populism, commitment to the preservation of Christian orthodoxy, and the establishment of the Church of England. However, below this broad ideological umbrella, differences persisted which created tensions, contributing to the divisions between 1827 and 1830, and, through them, the refinement of Tory identity.

Scholarly interest for the impact of technologies on democracy has raised in parallel to the decline of political participation. Technology has often been seen as either one of the causes of the crisis of representative democracy or as a powerful remedy to heal the negative externalities generated by party oligopolies. <p>The study of the impact of new media in party politics or presidential elections dates back the forties (with the outgrowth of radio) and has evolved in cyclical waves until today, covering the emergence of television, the development of global telecommunications, the birth of internet and finally what’s popularly called the Web 2.0.<p>The notion of eDemocracy emerges from this dynamic, but is in a league of its own. <p>There is no agreement on many of the terms that one needs to use to dissect its meaning. Scholars diverge on virtually every foundational concept: from the very definition of democracy and interactivity, to the core functions of political parties, to the definition of propaganda as opposed to political communication or to political marketing. As a consequence of this, there is little agreement on both what could be done in theory with eDemocracy and what is actually done in practice. <p>A permanent tension exist between idealtypes and real types in this domain. <p>The aim of this research is to prove this thesis with the largest and most global research unit of political parties web sites at the time of writing. <p>The choice of an information architecture approach has allowed to cover some uncharted territory while providing a first set of data on the structures of the political web (in 2004-2005) for public scrutiny. <p>The core of this research contribution consists in a basic taxonomy and a set of data (on the intentions and on the information architecture) resulting from a 10 years observational research on the early actors of the political web (stricto sensu i.e. 2073 political parties web sites), reviewed with a new degree of detail (through an ad hoc software procedure aiming at dissecting the structure of political web sites) and grouped into 3 main families (protosites, mesosites and neosites) of party web sites. These clusters of homogeneous web sites share a common way to deal with space, with files, with usability, with multimedia. <p>Classic views on eDemocracy insisted on the improvement deriving from more political information online: in theory, the more information we have, the more we can compare it and use it for our political orientation/participation. In practice, to describe the problem in cybernetic terms, this empirical research shows that load appears to be an issue for most party sites: there is too often either too little content (one out of five party sites around the world is a "protosite") or too much (11% of the observed universe materializes in real “content caverns”). A little more than 4% of the sites (a high end mesosite or neosite) had between 10000 and 48,000 links !<p>Cyber optimists have seen in the proliferation of party web sites a sign of improved party competition. For political minorities or for incumbent parties, in the political web, like in eCommerce, what really makes the difference is the conversion rate i.e. the number of visitors that turn into involved voters. Now, with the type of technical, socio-economical constraints reducing the widespread access to the net, with motivational factors (trust and degree of social connectedness) that may alter the individual’s response to the online information offer, with the imperfect implementation (in terms of usability) of the information architecture requirements for optimal political persuasion and communication online, the actual conversation rate of political parties web sites is likely to remain modest. <p>One of the most characteristic uses of the political web discovered in this research is to provide cloud like archival services for the party community. Parties - in the first ten years of the political web - were trying to check mainstream media and use their sites as a low cost, contemporary version of the party newspapers of the 70s. <p>Although this dissertation is not investigating the specific impact of party sites, the structural analysis carried out in the empirical validation suggests that the architecture of party sites in the years 1995-2005 was developing in such a way to be less and less capable of injecting meaningful inputs in the circuitry of modern democratic institutions. Engaged in a frontal competition with traditional news media (and deprived of the same assets), the early political web stricto sensu (and the set of interactive applications it contains) seems to be too a weak vector to channel adequate stimuli to alter and modify electoral processes or institutional dynamics.<p>The majority of the respondents of a political webmasters survey (107 individuals responded to the survey) carried out in the course of this research project indicates that the party site is not the party's leaders favourite platform to launch messages (64% of the answers disagree or strongly disagree to the statement). The majority of the respondents in the same empirical fieldwork agrees to the following statements: “the web is not the most important tool for the party communication strategy (58%)”, “key messages are published simultaneously on all media available (77%)”, “the party has created this site to allow people to contact candidates directly (63%)”, “the biggest part of the interaction with the public happens live, in meetings - the web is used essentially to post the party documents and to give news to the electorate (73%)”.<p>The most interesting results of this question are related to the transactive / mediating role of party communication online. It is beyond any doubt that in the view of these respondents their site has not been created “to invite the opposition to discuss with us (81%)”. If there is a politically relevant process that goes on in these sites it’s really among like-minded. <p>The mission statement [our party site is meant] “to gather the wants and needs of the electorate” splits respondents in two (54% of the respondents agrees and 47% and disagrees), but 73% of all respondents also agrees that most of the interactions with the electorate are non mediated, thus limiting the relevance of the political web stricto sensu to a mere information delivery platform. <p>The central thesis emerging from this first major reality check of the political web is that the structure of most party sites is simply not made to generate the ambitious levels of deliberative democracy. Not only a large number of party sites are microscopic, but they lack the basic means for human to human interactivity, a criticism that .In 34,7% of the cases scrutinized in the survey the sites lacked even of the mailto command (used to allow end users to write mails to the webmaster). In 51.9% of the cases there is no form at all, to facilitate structured communications between the party and the audience. The majority of the early actors of the political web were not structured to engage in deliberative activities. Only a fraction of the universe (between 1 and 2%) showed multiple forms and input methods corresponding to advanced neosites (along the model of the US Green Party Action Centre) or the so called over exposure sites (such as the Argentinian Humanista party). The bottom line is that interactivity levels found – worldwide - on the largest array of political parties sites were (in the period between 1995 and 2005) simply discouraging, if one tends to believe in the rhetoric of eDemocracy. <p>A corollary of my central thesis is that the reality of the political web generated by parties between 1995 and 2005, shows a significant presence of techniques and communication forms typical of political marketing and propaganda. ‘Commands’, calls for ortopraxy, confrontational communication and a growing number of ‘digital tricks’ structure the toolbox of the best party web architects. A form of weak propaganda (the only sort of ‘naked hand’ propaganda that most political parties can afford to pay) has invaded and captured cyberspace. And the user community is becoming increasingly aware of this.<p>This research does not cover the user dimension. However marginal data obtained in one of the three empirical sections (the Web Master survey) seem to indicate that the political web (of the early years) maintained the capacity to swing some marginal seats. <p>This research covers forms of interactivity based on BBS, online fora and blogs but does not cover the historical period of the development of social networks such as Facebook and Twitter. The scientific conclusions are therefore intrinsically limited in value to the decade they refer to, but it is argued in the conclusions that recent surveys (Internet and Campaign 2010 Survey by Pew) do not seem to indicate that the so called Web 2.0 is drastically changing the levels of online political participation. <p> / Doctorat en Information et communication / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

La thèse de doctorat en science politique s’attache à comprendre le rôle des partis politiques parlementaires d’opposition en Russie entre 2005 et 2010. Elle se fonde sur l’étude des branches régionales du Parti communiste de la Fédération de Russie (KPRF), du Parti libéral-démocrate de Russie (LDPR) et de Russie juste à Tomsk, en Sibérie occidentale. Toute la problématique de ces trois partis d’opposition est liée à ce paradoxe :dans les années 2000, il existe en Russie des partis qui se positionnent comme étant d’opposition - dans un système partisan dominé par Russie unie - tout en se montrant loyaux envers le régime politique et ses principaux dirigeants.<p>Les données, recueillies au cours de huit mois et demi de recherche de terrain en Russie, sont essentiellement qualitatives. Une approche organisationnelle et fonctionnelle de l’étude des partis est utilisée afin de comprendre le rôle de ces trois formations dans le système politique russe. <p>La thèse s’attache à tester trois hypothèses :les partis parlementaires d’opposition remplissent certaines fonctions dans le système politique qui leur assurent le soutien d’électeurs et d’adhérents ;les organisations partisanes du LDPR, du KPRF et de Russie juste sont centralisées de manière à limiter la marge de manœuvre des branches locales et permettre un contrôle étroit de l’appareil central ;ces trois partis transforment au sein des institutions parlementaires le soutien des électeurs en soutien pour le régime.<p>Tout d’abord, il apparaît que le KPRF, le LDPR et Russie juste remplissent d’autres fonctions dans le système politique que celle de légitimation/stabilisation (Lavau, 1969). Ces fonctions sont multiples. Les activités électorales indiquent que ces trois partis servent, d’une part, de plateforme d’accès aux organes du pouvoir pour les entrepreneurs, d’autre part, la fonction d’expression est assurée en ce que les partis expriment des problèmes, proposent une alternative, et disqualifient certaines pratiques. Pendant les élections, et au sein du parlement régional, les partis assurent dans une certaine mesure la fonction d’organisation de l’opposition. Enfin, le KPRF, le LDPR et Russie juste remplissent, de différentes façons, la fonction d’assistance à la société.<p>Ensuite, la thèse a vérifié que les trois partis ont une structure interne centralisée à Moscou, tout en mettant en évidence l’interdépendance qui existe entre le siège fédéral et les branches régionales dans chaque parti. Une marge de manœuvre, différente selon les trois formations, existe donc au niveau des branches locales.<p>Enfin, l’exemple de Tomsk montre qu’une loyauté formelle envers le régime et une opposition réelle sont possibles. Cela implique des ambiguïtés, notamment concernant l’activité des députés de ces partis au sein des parlements locaux./The PhD thesis starts with this paradox: in the 2000s, the Russian party system is dominated by United Russia called the party of power. Nevertheless, this system also allows the existence of parties that claim to be the opposition, while being loyal to the political regime and its leaders. How do these parties resolve this paradox? <p>The doctoral dissertation in political science seeks to understand the role of parliamentary opposition parties in Russia between 2005 and 2010. It is based on the study of regional branches of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (KPRF), the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR) and Just Russia (SR) in Tomsk, Western Siberia. The qualitative data were collected during eight and a half months of field research in Russia. An organizational and functional approach to the study of political parties is used to understand their role in the Russian political system.<p>The thesis tests three hypotheses: first, the opposition parliamentary parties perform certain functions in the political system that gives them the support of voters and members. Second, the party organizations of the LDPR, the KPRF and Just Russia are centralized to limit the flexibility of local branches and allow tight control of the central apparatus. Third, we examine if these parties transform the support of voters into support for the regime in the parliamentary institutions at the local level.<p>The results show three elements. First, it shows that the KPRF, the LDPR and Just Russia perform several functions in the political system. On the one hand, they are platforms for businessmen to access to the organs of power; on the other hand, they express problems, offer an alternative, and disqualify some practices. During elections, and within the regional parliament, parliamentary opposition parties perform to a certain extent the function of organizing opposition. Moreover, the KPRF, the LDPR and Just Russia support citizens in various ways. <p>Then, the dissertation verifies that the three parties have a centralized internal structure. But it also highlights the interdependence between federal headquarters and regional branches within each party. <p>Finally, the case of Tomsk shows that formal loyalty to the regime, and a real opposition at the same time, is possible as far as the KPRF, the LDPR and Just Russia are concerned. / Doctorat en Sciences politiques et sociales / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

This thesis tests the hypothesis that increasing state subsidies to political parties cause a declined party membership. The theory that predicted this development was constructed by Epstein in 1967 and presented in his book Political Parties in Western Democracies. The theoretical propositions have been debated by political scientists since then, but no thorough test has been conducted.  In order to test the hypothesis state subsidies data and party membership data was collected for the national parties from eight states. The data was then analysed by use of the panel data models. Panel data models make use of the regression analysis technique. Examples of specialized such models are analysis through the fundamental parameter of change, first differencing and pooled analysis. The results provided by the models proved to not give a straight answer. Instead, the results pointed in different directions.  The most likely interpretation of the results is that increasing state subsidies to political parties does not cause a decline in party membership. To validate such a result would require that most of the results pointed in the same direction. Thus, the hypothesis of the investigation should be considered falsified. Instead the focus of future studies should probably be directed at the supply side of party membership. When party membership decline is explained by the supply side this means that the decline is explained by people stop having motive to become party members. However, it is important to remember that other interpretations of the results are possible as well.

Research of process of forming of party system of Russia at the present stage acquires special relevance that is caused by changes of a political regime. Change of nature of a political regime, sharpening of personalistic, unicentric lines has caused search of a new format of party system which would minimize possibility of instability of a political regime and became the effective mechanism of maintenance of the status quo. Main goal of dissertation research is studying of forming of a tendency to a monotsentrichnost in development of party system of the modern Russian Federation. Hypotheses which have proved to be true have been formulated: forming of unicentric party system when using strategy of a party creation of the power and its positioning in political space I became reaction of political elite of Russia to a situation of democratic transit and manifestation of its pragmatical interests.

La problématique conduit à une analyse du droit européen privé des contrats. La première partie recherche les sources de la liberté contractuelle européenne. La multiplicité des règles et des pratiques permet de constater un défaut de définition. Le premier chapitre souligne que l'autonomie de la volonté est relative parce qu’elle est subjective et évolue au gré des équilibres en jeu. Il s'agit d'une liberté intégrée, issue du code civil romano-germanique. Le second chapitre permet de constater que l'autonomie de la volonté est un principe très relatif en droit international privé. Le pluralisme du droit implique que la liberté contractuelle est une notion sans source et ni stable, ni établie. Le droit international privé européen est en construction et fonctionnel.La seconde partie étudie la liberté contractuelle européenne du point de vue du droit positif au sens large du terme. Cette liberté est un principe relatif en symbiose avec les nécessités de protection des cocontractants et du commerce européen. Il s’agit d'un principe subjectif du fait de l'ordre public européen (qui contient l’ordre public économique, les lois de police et l’ordre public international classique), et d’un principe essentiel dans la construction européenne. Le premier chapitre trace le cadre et la structure générale de la liberté contractuelle européenne. Elle participe au commerce et se doit de respecter les principes essentiels de l’Union au sens de droit objectif (liberté d’établissement, juste concurrence, égalité commerciale) ; elle est traduite par l’essor de principes européens et par la pratique commerciale. Le second chapitre note que la liberté est une notion intégrée dans la société européenne. Elle est fonctionnelle et trouve son équilibre en correspondant avec l’ordre public au sens subjectif (protection des parties les plus faibles et des droits fondamentaux). / Problem drives to analyze what is European right of contract. First part searches the sources of European freedom of contract. The multiplicity of rules and practices allows seeing a defect of definition. The first chapter underlines that the autonomy of the will is relative because it is subjective and it evolves according to the balances in contract. It determines that this freedom is joined and is partly the result from the Romano-Germanic civil code. The second chapter allows noticing that the autonomy of the will is henceforth a very relative principle in international private law.Pluralism of the law involves that the contractual freedom is a notion without spring neither stable nor established. The European private international law is under construction and organized in a functional waySecond part studies the European contractual freedom from the point of view of the substantive law. This freedom is a relative principle in symbiosis with the necessities of protection of the parties of contract and necessities of the European business. It is about a subjective principle because of the European law and order (it contains the economic law and order, the lois de police and the classic international law and order), and because of principles in the European construction. The first chapter draws the frame and the general structure of the European contractual freedom. It participates in the business and owes respect the essential principles of the Union in the direction of objective right-law (freedom of establishment, just competition, commercial equality); it is characterized by the European principal development and by the commercial practice. Second chapter notes that the freedom is integrated into the European Union. It is functional and finds balance by corresponding with the law and order to the subjective direction (protection of the weakest parties and the fundamental rights).

Despite not being a federation Spain is deeply decentralized country. The present-day system of political and territorial organization was outlined during the process of transition to democracy, which took place between 1975 and 1982. The so-called State of Autonomies was based on consensus and will to find a general agreement among the main political actors. Hence, to some extent, it has an ambivalent nature and nowadays is short of full acceptance and finality. This fact alongside the age- old heterogeneity of Spanish population results in a cleavage mirrored in the different views on desirable power and territorial configuration of the country. Today, Spain is divided into seventeen autonomous communities. These units are endowed with both executive and legislative functions and they constitute distinctive political arenas. In some of them the political competition resembles that of the national level. Nevertheless, in the majority of the communities the regional political parties have got an important, sometimes even pivotal role. Right these actors of regional politics are in the focus of this research. In its scope we defined two aims. Firstly, we want to find out what attitudes the regional political parties take towards the autonomous state and its nature, and, respectively, if and to what...

The basic goal of diploma thesis "The Propensity to Government Budget Deficit: Analysis of the Influence of Political Cycle on Czech Fiscal policy" is to identify fundamental factors which influence decisions about the size of government budget balance and to analyze the influence of political cycle on the volume and structure of government expenditures in the period of 1993-2009. Analysis is based on theories which are connected to the areas of public sector, state and its function, public finances, government budget, the process of generating budget, political cycle, political parties and europeanization. The problem of propensity to budget deficits is structured using dimensional analysis and problem tree. The influence of political cycle is verified by using the combination of qualitative analysis of policy documents and quantitative analysis of specific indicators. Analysis classifies external and internal factors influencing the tendency to deficit budgeting. Political cycle is one of those internal factors becouse it is affected by the decision making process of political representatives. The influence of political cycle on the volume of government expenditures and the expenditures of the Ministry of Labor and social affairs could not be demonstrated on data. Otherwise, there is possibility...

The aim of this graduate thesis is to analyze if and how the extra-parliamentary subject Akce D.O.S.T. influence the society and if the subject can be described as radical right-wing populist. Case Mudd's concept of the populist radical right was applied in the Citizen Association Akce D.O.S.T. to answer to these questions. On the basis of the Piero Ignazi' s theory silent counterrevolution follows the evaluation if the current conditions for the growth of the extreme and radical right-wing parties and similar subjects are favourable in the Czech Republic and if their growth could be expected. Attention is also focused on whether the economic conditions that have an impact on voters, influence their support for right-wing parties.

Czech party system can be described as relatively young compared to other, especially western European party systems. However in these days we can identify a number of regional parties inside it. This work answers the question how we can accurately identify which political entities belong to the group of regional parties in the context of the Czech Republic and which not. Likewise, it brings analysis of the position of these kinds of formations in the Czech political system. The theoretical part deals with the definition of "regional party". It brings several different theoretical approaches, which deal with the definition of that term, and then examines the application of the definition of regional parties to the case of the Czech Republic. In the analytical part, which is a case study, there is defined circuit of Czech regional parties. After that it is presented comprehensive analysis of these subjects on base of official documents of these parties, such as their articles of association, political program etc., as well as statistical data kept in the databases of central government authorities of the Czech Republic and interviews with members of selected regional formations. Particular attention is paid to these phenomena: the circumstances of creation of selected regional parties, as well as...